“What kind of attack is that?!” Medith stared, slack-jawed. She’d never imagined water could chew through a city wall like hungry wolves.

“Medith! I need your help! Even a little!” Haidra’s voice shook, thin against the storm. “The next ‘tsunami’ is about to hit. If a tsunami has a Collapse Point, I want you to find it. Can you?!”

Medith froze, baffled. Collapse Point? What even was that?

Sais brought her arms together and drew the Dark Blade. Rain sheeted down its black sheen. In white armor, she looked like a valkyrie striding a storm. “I don’t know if a tsunami has a Collapse Point,” she said, calm as steel. “But I can try. Medith, your mana’s close to mine. Your will’s even stronger.”

“When it comes, open [Wind Eye] and sweep the water wall. Find the one point where all points converge.”

“Remember!”

“Don’t you dare sweep the wind itself. You’ll die.”

“The point where all points meet?” Medith frowned, lost. She had no time to ponder. The sea reared in the distance, a thirty-meter wall of water. The surface flipped like a table, like a sea god lowered his trident. Under absolute power, everyone felt small.

“Lady Haidra! We can’t hold a tsunami this size! Abandon the wall!” Kailon’s voice bled worry.

Haidra’s hands shook on her spear. She wrestled with it for five heartbeats. Then she shouted, firm as iron, “Kailon, pull everyone back! Medith, Sais, and I hold. Even for a moment!”

“If we weather the first smash, the force drops hard. The wall will hold. Set the rear for impact!”

“The residents should be out. Powell pushed them to the outskirts. Go!”

Kailon met the resolve burning behind their visors. He gritted his teeth and led the withdrawal. The rain eased a shade; the drops were smaller, tighter. But the far wall of despair didn’t slow. It grew as distance died. The gate lay only a few dozen kilometers away now. The wave stretched for a hundred kilometers like a moving horizon.

“Thirty meters tall. Over a hundred kilometers long. If it hits head-on, the city’s done. Medith! Sais!” Haidra’s presence bit like frost. The spear tip pulsed with silver light.

“Back from me. A hundred meters, minimum!” She herself sprinted another hundred meters along the wall. Medith and Sais had barely cleared when a roar tore through the gale: “Regido—!”

“Ah!! She knows that move too?!” Sais flinched like her soul had slipped. Whoom—whoom—the light around Haidra turned snow-pure, untouched by any worldly stain.

Why can they trigger that transformation? Medith’s hunger outgrew her shock. What are the conditions? The limits? If I can get that method… She clenched a quiet vow to turn mana into that same metamorphosis.

Rrrrrrumble— A pillar of white shot from Haidra’s body and speared the clouds. Medith saw it and a spike of pain stabbed her skull. A boy’s voice flooded in, bright with madness: “Hahaha— I was wrong. It’s not me, not you. It’s this world—break—...”

“Ugh…” Medith groaned through clenched teeth. Sais missed it, stunned by the sight. The pillar was whiter and thicker than Nessos’s. A sigil flickered inside the blaze, the shadow of a spear. Its details blurred in the flood of light.

Woo-woo-woo—fwoom— The rain around Haidra bent away as if a hidden hand had turned the air. Every bead ricocheted outward, like a barrier kicked humanity off its skin.

Haidra’s armor hadn’t changed, but her spear wore silver. A white serpent’s pattern coiled up the shaft. The head carried triple fullers and cold serrations. Medith knew that shape. It was made for war alone. One pull, and it ripped out meat and bone. The wound wouldn’t seal. You bled out in minutes.

“Wind Serpent—” Haidra raised the spear and snapped it in a blur. It obeyed like her own arm. The spinning pressure out-roared the storm itself.

“Medith—!” Sais’s eyes flared. Twin green sparks flashed. She swept the incoming wave at twenty kilometers with brutal speed.

Medith drew a deep breath and opened [Wind Eye]. Szzzz— The world scraped away. Her sight filled with a scene she’d never known. The giant wave broke into white points of light. Her eyes raced. More and more points flared into being.

Ding-ding-ding— With each new point, her eyes burned. Her balance pitched. Nausea rose like a tide flipping her stomach. She nearly retched. Will hammered it down. Mana steadied her bones. She held.

Before her, a star map unfurled—dense with lights beyond counting. Vast as a river of stars. She hunted for the Collapse Point. Every point was identical. Only one truth held: each point linked to another by a line.

There were countless lines, tangled like a spider’s web. Time was a knife at her back. The points rushed closer. Medith forced her focus to the center. Suddenly, the lines writhed as if alive. A thousand ropes leaped. A hundred demons danced. Her sight reeled.

“Hm? This is…” The lines seemed lawless, yet each pointed to one place. Medith followed the snarl to its heart. There—one point felt wrong. Its shape was masked. It looked round. In truth, it was a diamond.

Every line crossed there. “That has to be the Collapse Point!”

“Haidra—! Found it! Dead ahead of me. Bearing three o’clock, ten minutes, thirteen seconds! Get it exact!”

Haidra’s eyes cut over and locked on the bearing. The spinning spear tip lunged. Shrrrk—whooo— A helical Cyclone ripped from the point and tore toward the wave.

Moments later, the spiral slammed the water. Thoom— A corner of the wave caved, punched with a cruel notch. It looked minor.

Then the wave split like a cracked melon. It burst apart a few kilometers off the wall, blown into a rain of ruin.